Review: Big Bang Theory – The Holographic Excitation

To begin with, anything after last week’s episode was bound to be somewhat of a letdown. Having said that, the newest episode of The Big Bang Theory was still pretty good.

Howard, newly returned from space–oh, did you guys know Howard was in space? Yeah, apparently he was an astronaut and was on the International Space Station. He has a uniform and everything, but he’s not sure if he wants to wear it on Halloween as a costume because it’s really his work clothes because, you know, he was an astronaut who went to space. How do we know this? Because he won’t shut up about it. That is until Bernadette gets fed up with all the crude space metaphors during their amorous activities, and tells him that he’s annoying everyone with his constant references to his time in space.

As Howard turns all passive aggressive, the others are getting ready for Halloween. Sheldon and Amy attempt to negotiate on which “couple” costume to wear, going through various suggestions before finally settling on Raggedy Ann and Raggedy C-3PO.

In the meantime, Penny attempts to take interest in Leonard’s work…finally. This provides some solid character growth. After the beginning of the season, when she couldn’t decide if she actually loved Leonard or not, here we find her really getting to know who he is and being attracted to him because of his intelligence and insight, instead of in spite of it.

While Leonard is getting lucky in the lab…twice, Raj goes on about the Halloween party he’s planning for Stuart’s comic shop…twice. This actually harkens back to an episode a couple seasons ago where he says that if he wasn’t and astrophysicist, he’d be a party planner. Well, he gets his shot here. His spirit is willing, but his imagination is weak. He comes up with “tortured food puns” like: sesame seed bunzillas, night of the living garlic bread, and draculoni and cheese. Poor Raj. Poor unimaginative Raj.

Everyone makes it to the Halloween party in their various costumes: the aforementioned Raggedy Ann and Raggedy C-3PO, Indian Jones (Raj), Sexy Cop Penny and Leonard Albert Einstein, and Howard and Bernadette as Papa Smurf and Smurfette. We end with Howard coming to accept that he can be valuable even without the incessant space references.

All in all a pretty solid episode. It wasn’t as funny as the previous episode, but some solid character growth.

Quote of the night comes from Amy to Bernadette: “Do you think your husband’s fondness for turtlenecks is an expression of longing for his missing foreskin?”